Friday, December 06, 2013

Outside My Window Right Now


The clouds have knit themselves into a gray coverlet and the wind is picking up. Stray leaves go whirling into the air and flit momentarily with the small birds that have come to the feeder. Little gray and white juncoes sit on the fence, sharing space with the downy woodpeckers and the wee brown finches. Every hardwood has shed its summer leaves. They wave their stick fingers and clatter their branches like castanets. Though bits of the lawn are still green, it is last summer's color and it's liberally sprinkled with buff and brown. Every surrounding meadow is a pale expanse of wheat colored stubble. Against the cobbled bark of a maple tree sprays of winterberry glow red and mahogany oak leaves cling tight to their parents.

I have replaced the Thanksgiving corn with a beaded bittersweet wreath. Tomorrow I will fill the suet feeders and buy more birdseed. I collected pinecones this fall and will slather them with peanut butter for the squirrels. If I give them their own treats at wood's edge they come less frequently to plunder the birds' food. I have turned the garden beds and put away the patio furniture. I like the spareness of this season when I can see the bones of the earth and smell the clean, metallic scent of snow on the air.

Winter can come now.

6 comments:

Hilary said...

You make me anticipate the season.. even though it's already here. You have such an appreciation for what the season's bring. And you express it so beautifully.

Tabor said...

I am never ready for winter. I like it, but sometimes it scares me with its harsh temperatures and ice. But it doesn't last forever and soon it becomes brown and musty again.

J Cosmo Newbery said...

It is with a great deal of relief that I can report a warm and sunny morning in Melbourne!

Brian Miller said...

i like the sparseness of the season as well...and the trees...we are to have ice on saturday night...not sure i want that as much as snow...

Anonymous said...

I love your description of the simplicity of winter. It's good to strip down to the bones and remember what's important!

Pauline said...

Hilary - the only weather I can think of that I don't like is freezing rain, and then only when I have to drive in it.

Tabor - our winter starts in November and lasts till April. Long about March I'm ready for it to end!

J Cosmo - lucky you! We won't see that for many months now.

Brian - I love the snow, hate the ice!

Barbara - winter has its own beauty, doesn't it?